In talking to a business associate he said he was reading an article that reminded him of me and my philosophy on employees. He shared with me the comment below from the New York Times. My business like all businesses is not perfect but an average job is not acceptable in today's market. Read on........
"In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over." Thomas Friedman, NY Times
Now tack one more item to the list--cheap food. And it's not just the 'average' workers that are hurting in the new economy, it's average businesses too. I've said before that over the past 3 years I've seen more businesses closed to bankruptcy than I have over the previous 20, but it wasn't just the great recession eating away at American business it's the reinvention of the competitive market.
“In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.” Adam Davidson, The Atlantic
Over the last few years I've had the good fortune to work with food processors and distributors that have been building their business's unique value. Values like farm to table traceability for locally grown foods, simplified customer order entry and rapid response services, and high level quality control and product management. When implementing these programs I've seen some of my customer's employees rise to the challenge and learn new skills they'd never had to use before, I've also seen employees that fell behind and eventually left or were let go.
The lessons today is are hard ones, but they're truths you need you need to realize at every level of your business and questions you need to ask yourself and answer honestly.
- An average worker doing an average job will no longer keep an average business profitable.
- What have you done to make your Organization not accept average?
- Create an environment where your workers have the opportunity to be exceptional...
...but don't forget to remind them that average is over.
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